Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

Sociology 75
writers like Max Weber the constructing of specific types has even been consid-
ered the core of sociological understanding. Here again it is useful to ask what
might be meant by a type if the idea is reduced to the parsimony of variate
language.
Logicians have created the notion of attribute space. It is obviously possible to
take a set of variates and to find all possible combinations. Each single combina-
tion might be called a type or some sub-sets of such combinations. Weber for
instance has given eight attributes of a perfect bureaucracy. Obviously one can
think of social structures which have only some of those characteristics and
describe them as types. Linguists have made typologies of languages by cornbin-
ing various phonetic characteristics. For the purpose of the present review the
reverse aspect is more relevant. Suppose that a writer has intuitively developed
a series of types. Would it be possible to propose a system of variates from which
such a typology might have derived? Because this idea wil become relevant in
subsequent sections one example of social substruction wil be given here.
Erich Fromm has proposed that the relation of young people to their parents
can be classified into four types: complete authority, simple authority, lack
of authority and rebellion. It so happened that questionnaires were available
for a sampling of young people, to provide information as to how they felt
toward their parents.
The authority relationship in a family is classified by the way in which the
parents exercise their authority and the way in which the children accept it.
Through questionnaires, the parental exercise of authority was rated as either
strong, moderate or weak; likewise, the children’s acceptance of authority was
rated as high, weak or low. Logically, this makes nine combinations possible.
A variate-space substructed for a typology of family relationships
Children’s acceptance
High Medium Low
Strong I 2 3
I I IV
Parents’ exercise Moderate 4 5 6
I1 I1 IV
Weak I 8 9
I11
This scheme can be related to Fromm’s four types, which were, of course,
originally conceived from very different qualitative considerations.
Fromm’s type Variate Exercise
combinations
Accept ance
I Complete authority I and 2 Strong High or medium
II Simple authority 4 and 5 Moderate High or medium
111 Lack of authority 8 Weak Medium
IV Rebellion 3 and 6 Strong or Moderate Low